iFeel Like Running Away
by Poppy-Sox
Summary: Set immediately after the episode iSpeed Date. After seeing Carly & Freddy dancing Sam can't handle her feelings and runs away. CAM oneshot.


**iFeel Like Running Away**

Sam was glad her feet knew where they were going. They certainly seemed to have a plan when they had turned her around in the entrance of The Groovy Smoothie and walked her back out on the street. Without instructions they now had decided to follow the familiar path back to her apartment. Besides, her brain was far too preoccupied to think about what her feet where doing as they plodded along carrying her through the quiet nighttime streets of Seattle.

It wasn't plans for her latest prank or a tantalizingly vague idea for an iCarly sketch that concerned Sam's thoughts, or even drool-inducing fantasies of food. In fact it was just one single image. An image that refused to disappear or fade away. Instead it just hung there, right behind her eyes, forcing her to look at it. It was the sight that had caused her feet to take over from her brain and carry her out of The Groovy Smoothie.

_Carly. Carly and Freddie dancing together there in the middle of the cafe. Freddie still dressed in his tux and Carly beautiful in the dress she'd bought especially for the dance. Their bodies pressed close together and her head resting on his shoulder. Her face in the crook of his neck where he'd have been able to feel her hot..._

She couldn't understand why the image wouldn't go away. Why her brain was forcing her to look at it again and again. She wasn't even sure that she wanted to understand, as every time she tried to think about it she was made to ponder other questions. And even being faced with that image, for whatever reason, was better than having to work out why her stomach felt hollow (despite the pocketful of bacon she'd eaten on the way over to the cafe) or why her head felt as fuzzy as her TV set that only picked up Channel 6 and what appeared to be a network dedicated to Spanish language cop shows.

Sam's brain regained control of her feet within twenty feet of her apartment block. She stood on the sidewalk in silence as the traffic blurred past and stared up in the general direction of the apartment she shared with her mother. She couldn't see their window from where she was but she would bet the light wasn't on. The lights never seemed to be on, even on the rare occasions when the bills had been paid. Either her mom was passed out on the sofa again in the dark or was locked up in her room with the latest man who'd been sniffing round her.

It was the thought of climbing the steps to that dark, empty apartment that stopped Sam's feet. Cold rooms, nearly empty of furniture and lacking even more in warmth and love. Even the fridge was empty except for half a six pack of beer and a bottle of milk hazardously past it's use-by date.

Normally when she didn't feel like facing her loveless home or her drunken mother Sam would invite herself to spend the night at Carly's. Carly's – where her brother Spencer always seemed to be working on some strange sculpture, filling the large loft apartment with noise and color, and where Carly herself was always ready to take Sam's mind off her home life with a night of online buffoonery or a late-night movie marathon, or with her fully stocked fridge.

She would have given anything to be able to turn back and walk back the way she'd come to Carly's apartment which was just across the street from The Groovy Smoothie, but whenever she thought about going back that image of Freddie and Carly dancing flashed up in her head and a strange sensation made cold shivers run up and down her bare arms and snakes wriggle in her belly.

It was a feeling anyone else would have recognized as fear, but Sam Puckett wasn't a girl that recognized fear. She was a girl that could have walked into a den of tigers without breaking a sweat. Fear was something she had only felt once before, when Carly's former best friend Missy had reentered Carly's life and tried to steal her away, and Sam hadn't recognized the feeling then either. All she knew now was that when she thought about seeing Carly she felt weird and when she thought about seeing Carly and Freddie she felt like she wanted to throw up.

So Sam stood on the corner of her street, a petite tousled headed blonde all alone in the city in the dark, caught between going home to a place she didn't want to be and returning to a place she felt she couldn't stay. Standing still was no good either, it just made her head feel fuzzier and her stomach feel emptier...

And so she ran.

She ran straight past the door to her apartment building without slowing, once again trusting her feet to choose her path. Without any thought to where she was going, other than the vague idea that the further she was from The Groovy Smoothie and Carly's apartment the better her head and stomach would feel, she sprinted on, the skirt she'd felt compelled to wear for the dance flapping against her bare legs and her trainers, the one concession to her true laid-back self, beating out a rhythm on the sidewalk.

The beat of her feet was almost calming. If she concentrated hard enough she could focus nearly all her attention on the noise. Whenever that dumb image would try and force it's way back to the forefront of her mind she would increase the tempo of her footsteps, forcing her legs to work a little harder and her body to move a little faster. She wanted to run until her legs gave way and her lungs exploded. She wanted to run until her life hadn't just faded into the distance but also from her memory.

And as she ran, past couples on their way home and shopkeepers closing up for the night who turned to watch the little blonde with the determined look on her face sprinting through the night, the image of Freddie and Carly dancing faded away to be replaced with just the image of Carly.

_Carly laughing at one of Sam's pranks or Carly fetching her soup when she felt ill or Carly and her dancing together or any of the other seemingly small but special moments best friends share. Carly..._

Finally her legs could carry her no longer and she stumbled and fell to her bare knees on the sidewalk, her body shaking and her lungs begging for air. She knelt on the cold concrete and although she lacked the breath to make a sound she cried, tears streaming down her face.

She must have looked so lost; a young blonde girl dressed for a formal dance but kneeling alone on the pavement lit only by the streetlights and the headlights of passing cars and crying, the tears leaving pink streaks on her pale skin.

"Are you okay?"

She looked up and saw a pair of highly polished shoes at the end of ironed black trousers, and although she knew the stranger was just being nice, she was Sam Puckett and Sam Puckett didn't need people to be nice to her... and anyway the shoes make her think of Freddie's shoes side by side with Carly's. So she screamed at this nice man who had just stopped to ask a crying girl if she was okay. A burst of unfocussed noise that seemed to burst from her petite body, that cracks and warbles through her lack of breath and her tears, but is enough to send the businessman scampering away up the street.

Screaming once again proved an effective solution to Sam's problems as it had so many times in the past. Some of the tension that had been squirming in her stomach and flitting around in her brain seem to have been released by the outburst and her head felt clearer for the first time since she left The Groovy Smoothie. Clear enough to form some kind of plan, but not a plan she wanted to think closely about as her hand reached in her pocket for her phone, afraid that if she did she would stop herself.

She listened, fighting the urge to hang up which grew stronger with each ring, until she heard _her _answer.

"Hey."

"Hey Carls". She was unprepared for how weak her voice sounded. With all the running and the crying it was little more than a whisper. "It's Sam". She didn't know why she said that, of course Carly would know who it was. She felt nervous and it made no sense. Sam was more confident than most people found acceptable, especially around Carly, but right now she felt scared and exposed.

"I know it is, silly". Carly laughed nervously at the other end of the phone and at the sound all Sam wanted to do confide in her best friend. She wanted to tell her that she'd seen her and Freddie dancing and it made her feel weird. She wanted to tell her that her stomach felt like it was falling down to her feet and that there was pictures playing in her head that wouldn't go away. She wanted to tell her that she felt confused and scared but she didn't know why. She wanted to tell her everything because that's what best friends do; they share, but she didn't. Instead she said:

"Where are you?"

"I'm home, where are you?"

Sam looked around and realized for the first time that she didn't know where she was, her feet having carried her around numerous corners and down several nameless streets before giving up. There wasn't a single landmark or store name she recognized and not a fast food place in sight that would have confirmed her position. "I don't know," she whispered.

"You see this is why I call you silly". It was clear that Carly was trying to keep the mood light but Sam could hear the concern in her voice, and it took all her strength to hold back her sobs from escaping down the phone line.

Sam may not have understood what the feelings where running around in her head or threatening to force her bellyful of bacon back up her throat but what she did know is that she wanted to be with her best friend. However, there was still one thing stopping her from running back to Carly. "Who's there with you?" she asked.

"Erm, no-one... well, except Spencer."

"Freddie isn't there?"

If Carly was surprised that Sam had used Freddie's real name rather than 'Fredward' or 'Fred-dork', or even just 'Nub', she didn't let it show. "No."

Sam may not have recognized many of the emotions she was feeling but she certainly understand the wave that flowed over her as relief. "Oh. Can I come over?"

"You're actually asking me, rather than just showing up and falling asleep on my couch? Are you sure you're Sam?" Another nervous laugh from Carly.

"Okay, I'm going to ask someone the way home. I'll be over as soon as I can."

"I'll wait up for you."

Both girls fell silent, sharing perhaps the first awkward silence they'd ever suffered during their long easy-going friendship. Sam listened to the Carly's shallow breaths over the phone, feeling there was something that needed to be said but unable to find the words to fill the silence.

It was Carly that finally spoke "Sam, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she replied, although she knew there was no way that Carly could believe the tiny broken voice that spoke. "Just wait up for me." She stopped herself from adding "Please," before hanging up and letting the tears she'd been holding in for the phone-call to flow down her cheeks.

All that concerned her now was getting to Carly's, and that meant finding out where she was. She looked around for someone to ask and saw that the businessman who had kindly asked if she was okay and got screamed at for his trouble was still within sight.

"Hey, you!" she yelled chasing after him.

"Er, hello". The man turned, but kept one leg braced, ready to flee if this small blonde teenager suddenly turned crazy again.

"Where's Avenue East?"

"Erm, I'm not quite sure," the man replied, hardly impressed by the girl's manners but glad she wasn't screaming at him again.

Sam sighed loudly making sure the man understood his incompetance. "Well do you know where The Groovy Smoothie is?"

"What is that, a smoothie shop?"

"No, it's an underground mole kingdom," Sam said, her reply dripping with sarcasm, finding once again that harassing strangers was a great way of avoiding dealing with your own problems. "Look where's the nearest Clucky's?"

"The fast-food joint?" the man asked and instantly regretted it as the diminutive blonde opened and mouth and let forth another yell. "Argh, I'm sorry, of course you mean the fast-food place. I think there's one on the next street over."

Sam's teachers may have said she had difficulty taking in information, but there was one thing she did know and that was the location of every fast-food joint in Seattle. Thankfully there was only two Clucky's in the direction she'd headed from her apartment and the other was down near the port. "Well if that's the Madison Avenue Clucky's then home must be this way," she exclaimed and, without giving the helpful stranger a word of thanks, turned round and stalked off into the night.

The sprint there only seemed to have taken moments, but now she knew how far back she had to walk the distance seemed to stretch endlessly ahead, especially for a girl who's idea of exercise was 30 seconds of flailing around followed by 5 hours of vegging out in a bean-bag eating frosting. However, the worse thing about the walk was that even though her legs ached and her throat felt phlegmy and her eyes felt puffy, her head was clear for the first time in hours and that meant she was able to think.

The only thing she felt sure of right now is that she wanted to see Carly but every-time she thought about stepping foot in her best-friend's apartment it made her stomach tighten up. It felt like she was at the top of a rollercoater waiting to fall but without the promise of excitement. All she wanted was to hang out with Carly like normal, raid her fridge and watch an episode of Girly Cow, but her stupid body was making her think that may be impossible. If she ever wanted things to be normal she had to work out why she felt so strange.

It had to do with seeing Carly and Freddie dancing together, she was sure of that, but why had it affected her so badly?

Could she possibly have a crush on Freddie? It was true that he was her first kiss, plus they argued all the time and wasn't that supposed to be what people that fancied each other did? That was certainly how it always was in those terrible romantic teen movies Carly was always dragging her to. Jealousy would certainly explain her feelings and the desire to run as far away from the scene as possible.

For two blocks she actually managed to convince herself that her first assessment was true; that she really did like Freddie as more than a friend. She tried to picture them together dating, holding hands, kissing...but the more she thought about it the more she realized that it wasn't what she wanted. Her mind kept returning to their kiss. On his balcony at night after opening up to each other it should have felt romantic and right, but it hadn't - in fact the very opposite. The kiss had been so disappointing that she'd tried not to think about it ever since it happened. Surely if you liked the person you were kissing there should be some spark of excitement, but with Freddie there was nothing. If a girl likes someone she isn't supposed to feel like she's kissing the wrong person even if she doesn't know who the right person is, is she?

Damn it, she'd worked hard to make a life away from home as easy as possible, slouching through school, avoiding having to work and spending as much time with her best friend as possible where the biggest decision was ham or bacon. And now everything seemed so damn complicated...

No, she was certain she wasn't in love with Freddie, but if it wasn't him that was affecting her so much then that left only one possibility... and girls definitely shouldn't feel that... should they?

_Carly resting her head on Sam's hip as they slept on the sofa or Carly sticking up for her or Carly hugging her when she cried or Carly..._

Images of Carly flitted through her brain with a rhythm that matched her slow moving footsteps. She'd never realized how many happy moments spent with Carly her brain had stored away, but here they were being shown to her one after another. When she thought about it, Carly's face - so open and expressive and kind - would often appear in her head, when she was dozing in class or lying in bed trying to blot out the noise of her mother and her latest lover in the next room. But that was perfectly normal, right? Girls often thought about their best friends, especially if they were as close as Sam and Carly...

Right?

Perfectly normal it may have been, but right now she wished she could get her friend's brown eyes, that could always share a thought with just a glance to Sam, or her long dark chestnut hair, which she hated anyone else touching but would sit happily as Sam absentmindedly played with a lock, out of her mind. The more the images of Carly spun around in her head the more confused she got, and the more confused Sam got the more likely she was to get violent.

She punched herself in the head, hoping the images would flicker and fade like when she kicked her TV at home when it insisted on showing her something she didn't want to look at, but still Carly remained. She punched herself harder, so hard it made her head throb and her ears ring, but still Carly remained.

Damn her stupid brain! If it was going to keep giving her pictures she didn't want to look at and theories she didn't want to listen to she was glad that she used it as little as possible. Even if the theory that was beginning to take form in her head was true, what could she do about it? She could hardly share what she was thinking with Carly. No, that would be the end of their friendship and Sam couldn't risk that. Carly was so much a part of her life that she wouldn't feel complete without her. She didn't just feel that she'd be in jail or living on the street without Carly; she felt she wouldn't exist at all.

She walked on, tired and hungry, using all her energy to keep her legs moving while her mind overflowed with the images of Carly, the sound of her voice, the slight vanilla smell of her shampoo. She was almost back to Carly's, and no clearer on how to deal with what she was feeling, when she suddenly realized how cold she was.

It wasn't really surprising - the outfit she chosen for the dance left her legs and arms bare and the thin material offered no protection from the cold night air. She looked down at her slim legs sticking out the bottom of her skirt, goose-bumped from the cold and her knees grazed and bloody from kneeling on the ground and cursed herself. God she hated what she was wearing! It was so girly, and prim, and... urgh!

She didn't even know why she'd chosen to wear it.

Wait, yes she did! She'd worn it because she was going to a dance and this was what girls wore to dance. They dressed up all fancy, and they danced with boys, and they kissed those boys and one day they married those boys. That was what girls were supposed to do!

She bowed and looked at herself in the wing mirror of a car parked by the roadside. Her eyes looked puffy and her cheeks looked flushed, but the wost thing was her make-up. The tears had made her mascara run and her eye shadow was smeared where she rubbed at her eyes. She glared at the reflection staring back at her. She hated wearing make-up, never bothering with it in day to day life. But that was what girls were supposed to do; go to dances and wear make-up.

Unsure whether she was angry at herself or just the whole world Sam kicked at the mirror ripping it from the side of the car. Damn it! She was Sam Puckett and when had Sam Puckett ever cared about acting how people told her she should act. Sam did what she wanted and for the most part she did so without regret or shame, so why should this be any different. She was Sam Puckett and she was great the way she was... and she knew at least one person that liked her the way she was.

She spit into her hands and rubbed the fluid over her face, giving her face a make-shift wash. She scrubbed away at her eyes and cheek with her wet fingers in an attempt to wash the make-up from her face, not stopping to her skin felt raw. Convinced she was as free from the girly gunk as she could get, she allowed herself a glance into the wing-mirror of another parked car. Aside from a few traces here and there her face was clean, and she allowed herself a slight smile at the reflection. Then she kicked the wing mirror from the side of the car because she liked the way the glass flew everywhere and the plastic casing bounced off along the sidewalk.

It was funny, she'd only washed the make-up off her face but she felt cleansed inside as well. Her stomach didn't feel as tight anymore and the thought of seeing Carly again didn't fill her with dread but with excitement. Even her legs seem re-energized and she hurried ahead soon arriving in the lobby of Carly's apartment.

Lewbert wasn't at his desk at this early hour and Sam raced to the stairs, climbing them two at a time until she arrived at Carly's floor. She wanted to behave like her normal confident self, just throw open the door that she knew Carly would have kept unlocked for her and stride in like she owned the place, but now standing in front of her best friend's door she could feel her confidence fading.

Instead she reached out and knocked lightly on the door for the first time in the years of their friendship. In the seconds that followed the knock her brain went crazy. What if Carly had given up on her and gone to bed? What if Freddie had come over? He only lived across the hall. He could have come over in the time it had taken Sam to walk over here. Her thoughts were cut short as the door started to open.

Relief flowed through her and her heart skipped a beat. There was Carly. Sam glanced over Carly's shoulder at the empty sofa and apartment. Just Carly! She had changed out of her dress into her pajamas and looked about ready to fall asleep but concern was etched across her face.

"Sam... you knocked!" All Carly wanted to do was ask Sam what was going on. Why Sam had called her at nearly midnight, clearly in tears? Why was her strong, confident best friend, who never let anything get her down, now standing on her doorstep looking as small and fragile as a doll? She had so many questions but she knew Sam, and Sam couldn't be forced into revealing things. She had to open up in her own time, so Carly didn't ask for anything, instead offering her friend what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

Sam looked up into Carly's face. The brown eyes begging for some explanation for Sam's strange actions and her soft mouth turned up in a loving smile. She had so many things she wanted to say but now she was looking into her friend's beautiful face the words she wanted to say refused to form either in her brain or on her tongue.

It was Carly that broke the silence."Where have you been? It's 1:30 in the morning." As she said it she glanced at her wrist, going through the pantomime of looking at her wrist even through she wasn't wearing a watch. In reality she'd been sitting looking at the clock, counting the minutes and worried sick since she'd gotten that weird call from Sam.

Carly wasn't expecting Sam to open up straight away but she at least expected a reply. Sam was never a girl who was lost for words. What she didn't expect was for her to suddenly fall into her arms and bury her tousle blonde head in her chest. It took her a minute to comprehend what was happening and then she realized; Sam was crying.

Carly was taken aback. She'd only seen Sam crying once before. Then Sam had been miserable about having to work at a job she hated and her sobs had been loud and accompanied by wailed words of suffering– a cry for attention. Now she wept almost silently. If she hadn't been able to see Sam's shoulders shaking and feel the wetness of her tears and the heat of her breath through her top she almost wouldn't have noticed.

The crying may have been quieter, but it had the same effect on Carly as it had had last time. All she wanted was to make the tears go away. It killed her to see Sam drained of her usual high spirits and devil-may-care attitude, and she would do just about anything to set things right. Until Sam told her why she was crying there was little she could say to make her feel better, so instead she wrapped her arms tightly around Sam and pulled her close to her body, kicking the door shut behind them.

God, her skin felt as cold as ice! She held Sam as tightly as she could, willing her love and warmth into Sam's small shivering body since it was all she had to give. Sam was so confident and exciting that to Carly she always seemed larger than life and she often forgot how small her friend really was. Right now she felt so tiny that Carly almost believed she could fully encompass her in her arms and protect her from everything.

She lowered her face to Sam's tousled blonde head and whispered "Sam, are you okay?"

The reply was so quiet and muffled that Carly almost didn't hear it. "I... really like you," Sam breathed in between sobs.

Carly gave Sam's body a squeeze. God, she could be silly sometimes! "I like you too, you big goof," she laughed. "Here, sit on the sofa, I'll get you food."

"I do like food." Sam sniffed loudly, her tears drying up.

"I know you do." Carly gave her friend a smile as helped her onto the sofa and watched her curl up, wriggling herself as deep into the cushions as she could get. "Let's see I think we have soup," Carly opened the fridge while continuing to talk. "Or I could make you a sandwich, or I..."

She was interrupted by a shout from the sofa, "I want meat."

"Or yes, we have meat."

Sam listened to Carly puttering round in the kitchen and smiled. She knew that Carly hadn't really understood what she'd meant by "I really like you" but it didn't matter right now. She'd understood, and for the moment that was the important thing. Anyway there was plenty of time to think what to do with her feelings in the future - right now it was time to eat!

THE END


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